BootsnAll Travel Network



Ummm…I Don’t Know About This Place

It was our last night in Belgrade so Ana and Borko insisted that they take us out on the town – ok, they didn’t have to do too much insisting. They were excited because it was the first time they’d been out since having their daughter a year ago, and Ang and I were excited because we’d heard and read all about how great the nightlife is in Belgrade.

As we walked through the lively downtown area of the city, we noticed that every bar had numerous outdoor tables and most of them were full of people. Borko explained that no one sits indoors at the bars in Belgrade, even in winter – they just bring out heaters when the temperature starts to drop.

We had a light and hoppy serbian beer called Deer Beer at the first bar as we relaxed and talked about life in Belgrade. When the live band showed up, Ana suggested we move onto another bar since it became too noisy to hear each other well.

We walked past many other bars and Ana and Borko apologized for being out of touch on what were the current trendy bars. Ang and I assured them we didn’t care. Besides, since most of the outdoor seating areas looked the same, we didn’t think it would really matter which one we chose. Ana and Borko then suggested a new Cuban bar that had recently opened which they hadn’t been to yet, but had heard was great.

Turned out that this bar was definitely not quite the same as the others around it.

We sat down at a table right next to the outside wall of the bar. As we munched on peanuts, I looked around us and noticed a huge poster hanging on the outside of the building. My eyes widened in surprise and I nudged Angela.

“Umm…I don’t know about this place,” I whispered. “I don’t think we’re very welcome.”

Angela turned around to look at the poster which had a picture of Fidel Castro on it along with a large quote across the bottom about how everyone needs to “unite against the one enemy…the U.S.A.”

At this point, Borko and Ana noticed what we were looking at and apologized. “We had no idea!” they said and offered to go somewhere else though they said it was probably no big deal. We had already ordered drinks so Ang and I just laughed nervously and said it was fine as long as nobody tried to kill us.

All the people who worked there were perfectly nice, and when Ang and I ran into the eerily empty inside of the bar to use the bathroom (everyone sits outside), the employees made small talk about Belgrade and where we’d been so far and didn’t seem to care that we were at their openly anti-american bar.

Who knows. Maybe they thought we were Canadian. I like to think we so charmed them with our nice and sweet American attitudes that they took down that poster after we left. 🙂



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